And texting over AX.25 packet radio was a thing before that :) We used to have whole conversations on the local BBS and sometimes even in UI broadcast frames wa

And texting over AX.25 packet radio was a thing before that :) We used to have whole conversations on the local BBS and sometimes even in UI broadcast frames watched in the Rx monitor. Repeated a few times to compensate for loss of course. After all APRS is just a protocol atop AX.25. To be honest I never saw the fun in APRS. I don't want to broadcast my position all the time. And that's really all its used for, save the occasional 1:1 text message. When APRS became popular it took the whole packet group chat thing away. That was a bit like IRC. The old packet radio had much more to offer. It was amazing because the internet wasn't available to us at that time and BBSes required phone calls by the minute. Being online all day would cost more than a monthly wage. But I could be online and chat on packet all day for free. But because its speed never continued scaling up, it was just too slow for anything but APRS in the end. It's sad that this whole community has gone. I kinda hoped the Digi modes would bring something back but it's mainly just voice. International group voice which is in itself amazing but I miss the chats.